At the
heart of the lawsuit is a June 8 email Fragola allegedly sent
to NASA’s chief of safety and mission assurance, Bryan D.
O’Connor, saying he was trying to verify a rumor that the Falcon
9’s first stage experienced a significant anomaly during its
December
launch of the Dragon space capsule. The suit was filed June
14 in Virginia’s Fairfax County Circuit Court.

"I have just heard a rumor, and I am trying now to check its
veracity, that the Falcon 9 experienced a double engine failure
in the first stage and that the entire stage blew up just after
the first stage separated. I also heard that this information was
being held from NASA until SpaceX can 'verify' it."

"First, there was no ‘double-engine’ failure (nor even a single
engine failure)," SpaceX says in its complaint. “As planned, two
of the nine first-stage engines shut down automatically ten
seconds before the first stage shut down.

"Second, the first stage did not 'blow up' after separation from
the second stage and spacecraft. The launch was broadcast by a
camera on the
Dragon spacecraft, which vividly showed the separation of the
first stage — and no explosion occurred. Furthermore, the first
stage was, at all times, tracked by ground telemetry including by
NASA. No systems observed any "explosion" of the first stage. As
an 'expert,' Fragola should have known the notion of the first
stage 'blowing up' was abjectly untrue."

O'Connor did not respond to a request for comment. Fragola,
reached June 16 at Valador's Rockville Centre, New York, office,
declined to comment, saying he had been advised not to talk about
the case.

SpaceX also declined to discuss the case. "It’s still in the
hands of counsel and we have no comment," SpaceX spokesman Bobby
Block said June 17.

Fragola is a safety expert and a core member of the NASA
Exploration Systems Architecture Study team that in 2005 picked
the Ares 1 and Ares 5 rockets the agency then set out to build
under the now-defunct Constellation program. In December 2009,
Fragola testified before the House Science and Technology space
and aeronautics subcommittee about ensuring safety in human
spaceflight.

In its complaint, SpaceX says Fragola sought a consulting
contract worth up to $1 million, claiming the company needed his
independent analysis of the Falcon 9 "to bolster its reputation
with NASA based on what he called an unfair ‘perception’ about
SpaceX." [ Video:
Falcon Heavy - Most Lift Since Saturn 5 ]

"SpaceX subsequently learned that Fragola — within the scope of
his employment at Valador, and using his email account at Valador
— has been contacting officials in the United States Government
to make disparaging remarks about SpaceX, which have created the
very ‘perception’ that he claimed SpaceX needed his help to
rectify," SpaceX’s claim states.

SpaceX also says that if anything went wrong during the flight,
NASA would have known. "NASA officials were present with SpaceX
controllers in the control center during the flight, and thus saw
in real time all of the telemetry information SpaceX controllers
saw," the complaint states. "SpaceX then provided extensive
post-flight debriefings to NASA, including telemetry analysis. If
any of the foregoing events claimed by Fragola had occurred, then
NASA would have known as soon as SpaceX did."

Asked whether the Falcon 9 experienced any type of first-stage
anomaly in its last outing, Block said: "Any observance noted had
no impact on this or future mission success."

SpaceX, which holds a $1.6 billion contract to deliver supplies
to the International Space Station using Falcon 9 and Dragon, is
seeking at least $1 million in damages plus legal fees and is
demanding that a jury hear the case.

SpaceX’s attorney in the suit, Douglas Lobel with the Cooley law
firm of Reston, Va., did not respond to a request for comment.

This article was provided by Space News, dedicated to covering
all aspects of the space industry.